Snail Shell
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Snail Shell |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Back To Skull, Snail Shell (Single), John Henry, Direct From Brooklyn, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, John Henry + Factory Showroom, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong |
| year | 1994 |
| first played | December 3, 1993 (261 known performances) |
| run time | 3:20 |
| sung by | John Linnell, John Flansburgh harmonizes |
Trivia/Info
- John Linnell on the song's inspiration in a 2025 interview with the A.V. Club[1]:
I guess it’s a little bit of riffing on Sly and The Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," maybe. I think that somehow fed itself into the idea of it; just another absurd thing to be grateful for. You know, "Thanks for letting me be *mice elf*" and “Thanks for putting me back in my snail shell."
- The music video was directed by Nico Beyer and was shot in Berlin, Germany.
- According to Brian Doherty, "This song was a Linnell composition and there was a lot of hope in the Giants’ camp that it would match the success of Birdhouse In Your Soul."[2] He elaborated on the song's video in 2010:[3]
We traveled to East Berlin to shoot this video in a television museum. In it, you’ll notice that I never open my eyes. For some reason, the director insisted that I play with my eyes closed, as a way of conveying intensity and drama. Ha? What? Anyway…did you notice the dude in the electric chair? The original script read that this guy’s character would get his head shaved on an operating table before going to the electric chair. When it came to shooting the scene, the actor cried like a baby as the electric shavers turned on. The director took pity and omitted the part where the guy gets his head shaved.
- In an interview with the Don't Let's Start fan podcast, Doherty said that due to lack of communication, he and Tony Maimone very nearly didn't appear in the music video:[4]
They had Tony and I put this video shoot on our calendar and then as the date approached there was nothing discussed. On Tuesday we heard that the Johns had left for Berlin to go shoot the video. I thought "Oh, okay, alright, I guess somebody will be calling me soon." The Friday before the shoot, I remember calling the (Elektra) office at 5 o'clock, and there was an intern still there. I said "Hey, uh, am I going to Berlin tomorrow?" He said, "I know nothing about this." Short story is that he and I booked tickets for me and Tony right there on the spot. We showed up in Berlin and no one said anything... To this day I can't figure out if it was intentional, or just a weird thing.
- The song "Complete Paranoia" can be heard by playing the alternate audio track of this song on the Direct From Brooklyn DVD.
Song Themes
Animals, Body Parts, Falling, Friendship, Gender Issues, Gratitude, Hands, Not In Major Or Minor, Personification, Questions, The Senses, Titles And Honorifics
Videos
- Watch it on
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